Adi lay on the bed in the knight's dormitory of the new residence and did absolutely nothing.
Her body went numb, and she thought about at least swinging her sword, but Roy asked if she had gone crazy and ordered the patient to lie down. I tried to read the book out of boredom, but he took it away, saying that the patient needed to rest. I decided to at least play chess - he said that it was better for the patient to lie down and took away the chess pieces.
Feeling that she wouldn’t be able to do anything here at all, Adi said that she would at least go bask in the sun, but Roy was indignant about what kind of sunshine a patient could get, and ordered him to go to the room.
In response to her words that she was not sick at all and had long since recovered, he arbitrarily declared that there were no people who were poisoned and recovered in less than three days, and that the body probably still hurt. After which he pushed Adi into the room, closed the door, placed a chair in front of her, sat down and began to read the selected book, not allowing her to leave.
Adi could not open the door, and there was nothing in the room. In other words, there was absolutely nothing to do.
Just when she didn’t know where to escape from boredom, Joel came.
Roy rose from the door to Adi's room. Joel could be trusted. He's a healer. Roy apparently decided that he had come to check on the condition after treatment.
However, contrary to Roy's expectations, Joel told Adi that the Duke was calling her. Adi decided that this was her chance - she quickly changed into her dress uniform and headed to the reception room where the Duke was.
And here.
- Yesterday you kissed me.
- What?
At the Duke's next words, she involuntarily covered her lips with her hand. If she had known in advance that she would have to listen to this, it would have been better to remain locked up with Roy.
- Not lips. The back of the hand.
The back of her hand or her lip - the fact that she kissed the Duke was amazing. Why, why, no - what even happened? Adi could not comprehend the situation, and Juls continued:
“And at the same time she called me Adi.”
-...
“And she said that she would protect me.”
- …Dream.
Adi said. In fact, she didn't remember anything. No memory of the kiss on the back of your hand, no memory of the dream about Adrien.
“I must have been dreaming.”
“It seemed like you wanted to protect your brother.”
Well, of course.
-...
She wanted to protect.
Adrian shouldn't have died like this. But his body weakened day after day without any reason, and everyone blamed the curse. Everyone threw harsh words at her. Adrina thought: if these words make Adrian feel better, that’s enough. She once thought so. And sometimes.
- Yes.
I wanted to become you, Adrian.
“He shouldn't have died like that.”
This is a curse. Even if it wasn’t originally a curse, they themselves turned it into a self-destructive curse. She herself, Adrian, Grimaldi. Everyone who lived in that house.
- Remember what I said?
But Adi's curse was different from Yuls's. He was under a witch's curse and seemed to have overcome it. Is it really even easier to get rid of such a curse?
- A way to lift the curse.
“...Your Lordship’s curse?”
- Yes.
Adi didn't answer. She remembered. It was ridiculous. Adi considered it impossible, and Jules seemed to think much the same.
- I told you: Kiss your loved one.
- Yes, but this is...
“...Wait, is he now saying that I broke the Curse?” - thought Adi. So, it was in the wrong piles of documents that he finally found something.
“You hardly love me, and I hardly love you, so of course it’s strange.” But yes, for the first time someone’s lips touched mine.
“...I lifted the Curse from the Duke? How?"
Jules extended his hand to the confused Adi. Adi automatically took it. The palm was huge. She thought that for a woman she had rather large hands and the difference with a man’s was small, but the Duke’s palm turned out to be much larger.
- Kiss.
-...
She had no idea how to react to this. Adi stood there, holding the Duke’s hand and blinking her eyes, then said: “Your Grace.” A simple appeal, but there was a clear refusal in it.
- Adi, Kiss.
-...
- This is an order.
An order means, well, it must be carried out.
Adi, shyly, took Yuls’s hand and, bringing it to her, touched the back of his hand with her lips. The skin felt softer than she expected. The large hand, which did not know labor, seemed even more beautiful than her own.
When Adi pulled her lips away, Juls said: “Continue.”
“Why is he doing this, after all?”
Adi reluctantly kissed his hand again.
- Rub your face again.
-...Your Grace, this is harassment.
Bert intervened nearby. Adi raised her head. Bert, as if burdened by her gaze - the gaze of a person who saw the savior - looked away. Jules removed his hand and silently stared at his nails. He hoped that they would grow at least a little, but nothing changed.
— It won’t change in a day?
-......
From the very beginning, Adi did not even think that it was she who lifted the curse. Beloved, then - and this is about her and Duke Jules Woodpecker? Moreover, she herself is a man... no, doesn’t she walk around in a man’s guise?
Of course, something intangible like a curse is more likely to reveal the true gender than the outer shell - but even if we put that aside, Juls and Adi were not and could not become a loving couple. Rather, on the contrary, their relationship was much closer to mutual distrust.
Adi will return to other matters when the Duke leaves, and the Duke himself is also unlikely to take Adi into his domain. Besides, there was something else that was bothering me.
“Your Grace, if you don’t mind, may I know what your intention is?”
Spencer Grimaldi.
The relationship between Woodpecker and Grimaldi doesn't look good. In addition, from what I heard through Roy, wasn't the Commander of the Second Order of Knights, Kenneth Max, trying not to give Gallardo to Woodpecker? In other words, both of them took the position of interfering with Woodpecker.
“...To love the child of the enemy? A man too?”
While Adi was puzzling over how open-minded this Duke was, the Duke himself was puzzling over how the current situation was generally different from that one.
Because there is no love?
Adi’s feelings were so filled with love then that even the insensitive Juls could feel it. It seemed that Adrian Grimaldi valued his younger sister Adrina Grimaldi so much that he involuntarily wanted to experience such love for himself at least once.
To ask that such love be directed towards him...
For the other side it would be a bolt from the blue.
But Yuls did not even think about retreating. Even if lightning strikes from a cloudless sky, even if the sun rises in the west, Juls had to end his curse.
- Adi.
- Yes, Your Grace.
- Kiss me every morning.
-...
Adi was speechless. And not only Adi. Bert was also speechless.
Even the servants who were watching were speechless. They were already one of those who in such circumstances did not dare to utter a word, but now they turned white to the very core and, unable to hide their questioning glance - what is the Duke even saying? — looked around.
Unable to even ask each other what was happening to him or what he was thinking about, their faces expressed only fear of what other crazy statements would follow - and from these faces Adi realized that what was happening was not a performance staged together, but the arbitrary actions of the Duke.
“And also think about going to my domain.”
“...Why are you doing this to me?”
Adi said this unconsciously. Originally, he had no intention of saying such things. For the first time in his life, finding himself in such an awkward situation, without having time to bite his tongue, he could not hold back the words that escaped, and Yuls snorted.
“It looks like you are the one I was looking for.”
Adi rolled his eyes and turned his gaze to Bert.
“This is a lead that fell into my hands over the course of a whole week.”
Jules spoke. The last witch of Dalcatir said so. What will he find out within a week? And just that day came. The day Adi kissed the back of his hand.
Until that very day, Yules was furious, unable to find something that could neutralize the curse. At night he hardly slept. He was convinced that the witch had not just left, but had escaped, and even made a plan to send people to Ramels to capture her and bring her back.
- The first is an order. The second is a proposal.
But the witch's words turned out to be true. Jules really found it.
“If the first thing decides everything, you won’t have to come with me.”
True, it was a surprise that it would be a man.
- But if this doesn’t help.
What difference does it make - a man or a woman - when it comes to breaking the curse.
- Try to love me.
-...
For a moment Adi was speechless. However, he was not the only one at a loss for words. Bert, standing next to the Duke as if on guard, and the servants next to him - every single one of them closed their eyes, as if unable to believe what was said, and some even covered their faces with their hands.
- Did I mishear?
Can't be. Unless the Duke has gone mad.
-If my curse is not lifted.
That's what she thought.
“You will have to love me, Adrian Grimaldi.”
No, not like that.
- I will try to love you too.
It seems the Duke has gone mad.